


Wolfie Outtakes

by Dragontrill



Series: The Wolf-dog [2]
Category: Avengers (Movies), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Posting in chronological order is not guaranteed, i do what i like, may or may not be canon, not really - Freeform, posting at all is not guaranteed, read the first story or you’re gonna be confused, self-contained chapters unless I say otherwise, sometimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 13:12:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15120134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragontrill/pseuds/Dragontrill
Summary: Stand-alones in the Steve Rogers and the Wolf-Dog universe.





	Wolfie Outtakes

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly didn’t think I’d be returning to this universe, purely since writing the last long while has been like pulling teeth. Typing is a mind-numbing pain, but writing longhand leaves me with the knowledge that I still have to type, edit, format....
> 
> Well, tonight I found an ipad program called Nebo that cost less than $9 Canadian and lets me write by hand on the ipad and will convert my handwriting, even when I get sloppy (okay, my sloppy is still pretty neat), into text ACCURATELY. The heavens have parted! The angels are singing! It won’t recognize a fucking tab or two paragraph returns in a row when you export, but who cares! I just wrote a werewolf Bucky short! 
> 
> Bucky gets exposed in more ways than one and Steve ends up talking to Melon again. Enjoy it while it lasts. I’m gonna go see if I can finish a chapter of “It’s Not Really Stealing, Honest”
> 
> PS, pay attention to the tags.

EXPOSED

Steve was in trouble.

Sergeant galloped across the rubble-strewn ground, dodging around smashed cars and broken suspension cables. The bridge was swaying around him, but he didn't care about that, just as he didn't care about the asshole robots swooping through the air everywhere like some kind of laser armed flying toasters.

He'd seen Steve take a hit while protecting some civilians trying to evacuate their cars and right now the man was half hanging off the missing edge of the bridge, glaring up at the enemy as if he thought he was in any sort of position right now to do anything about them that wouldn't send him pitching to his death a couple hundred feet below. Oh goodie, apparently he did. Steve tossed his shield at a robot that was threatening another couple of bystanders and lost what little grip he had left.

Sergeant threw himself across the few feet remaining between them and shifted form, his nice red harness becoming uncomfortably tight across his chest and back while providing no protection at all to any of the bare skin it didn't cover when he skid across the rough ground and caught his stupid owner by one flailing hand just before he could drop out of reach.

The other Avengers were all out of range, of course, scattered by Doom's army-or was it Boom? Sergeant couldn't be bothered to remember- but the ever present live news drones got an absolutely spectacular shot of his bare naked ass on live television.

#

The applause was thunderous when they stepped out onto the stage. Steve waved and kept a perfect war bonds smile on his face while Bucky trotted at his side, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth and his tail held high. He was looking at his total exposure to the world with his usual this-is-a-problem? attitude, which had to be better than the non-stop migraines of the Avengers' PR team. "Hi there. How are you doing? By the way, Captain America's dog is really a werewolf. Make it look good."

Bucky was basically acting the same as always, except for insisting he deserved extra doggie treats for saving Steve's life. Which, well, yes.

Steve was just worried about how people were going to react to him now. That they'd be afraid of him, that someone would try to hurt him. There were already some pretty influential people calling for Bucky to be turned over for study, which was not going to happen in any universe Steve lived in.

Hence today's televised interview, to get on top of the situation and present Bucky as what he was. A good person- if a little unusual-and a solid member of the Avengers.

Ellen Degeneres rose to greet them as they approached. She shook Steve's hand while he saw Bucky hop up onto the couch out of the corner of his eye and sit on the blanket he'd asked them to lay out for him. Then, to her credit, once she'd greeted Steve, she turned to Bucky.

"Sergeant!" she said. "It's good to see you again."

Bucky let his tongue loll and offered her a paw.

Ellen laughed and shook it before they all sat down and the interview started with the standard pleasantries, Bucky leaning against Steve on the couch. Steve let him, taking some comfort in the doggie closeness of it until Bucky stretched his neck out and licked his face.

The audience's reaction was immediate and Ellen leaned forward. "Now this," she said. "He keeps pretending even now?" Steve hid a wince. This was the part he had trouble explaining even to some of his teammates.

"He isn't pretending," Steve said. "Bucky's behaviour is genuine. He sees himself as a dog, not as a man."

"Bucky?" she asked, eyebrows raised.

"That's his original name. I named him Sergeant before I knew." He tried to lean away from Bucky, who was apparently determined to clean out his ear, but Bucky just leaned over more with him.

Ellen stifled a laugh, which put her ahead of most of the audience. "Why does he see himself as a dog?" she asked.

"You'll have to ask Bucky that," Steve said as he gently pushed Bucky back enough to look him in the face. "Buck, you were going to go human for this, remember? " It was decided it was important that people see him shift with their own eyes and hear him speak. Bucky might have forgotten that though. Sometimes he really did have a dog's attention span.

Bucky stared back at Steve for a moment, the tip of his tongue sticking out past the end of his muzzle. A second later, thanks to all his recent practice, he was fully human.

"Sorry!" Steve squeaked and grabbed for the blanket in order to cover up all the bits that Bucky apparently did forget he wasn't supposed to be putting on display. "He has no concept of body shyness."

"Apparently not," Ellen laughed. "I must say, Bucky, that you're a lot more ripped than I expected."

Bucky blinked at her, confused. "Ripped?"

"It's a compliment," Steve told him.

Bucky looked smug. "Of course. I'm awesome."

The audience laughed. It was working,Steve thought with relief. They were warming up to him; at least these people were, who were predisposed to be open-minded just by their willingness to come on this show.

Ellen asked her question again about why Bucky saw himself as a dog and not a man.

  
He cocked his head to one side in order to regard her. "I'm better as a dog. I hurt people as a man and they made me hurt people as a monster. I never hurt nobody as a dog and I even get to help now. "

"What do you mean?" Ellen asked, her tone gentle. Steve's heart felt tight in his chest.

Bucky shrugged, but he leaned hard against Steve, a sure sign of discomfort. "I was a soldier in the war 'cause they made me. Then I got taken prisoner and they did stuff to me. Turned me into a monster. Stevie saw it once." He fell silent for a moment, lost in memories, and Steve put an arm around his bare shoulders so he could give him a hug.

Ellen looked at Steve and he could see the question she was about to ask on her lips.

  
"It was when we were captured by Mole Man," Steve explained in order to give Bucky a chance to get himself back together, before he decided to just go dog again and run. "After he shot Bucky for his first demonstration." He nearly spat the words. When he'd thought his dog had been killed, he'd felt like he'd lost everybody all over again. When he'd seen Sergent move again... He took a deep breath.

"We were in energy shackles we couldn't break free of, but Bucky was just collared and chained. A dog couldn't take them off, but a human could easily."

"So he changed," Ellen said. The audience was silent while they listened.

Steve nodded. "With a bullet in his shoulder. I can't even imagine how much courage that took. How frightened and in pain he must have been."

Bucky looked at him out of the corner of one eye, but he didn't say anything. They hadn't ever really talked about this before, not least of all because Bucky didn't really talk.

"He figured out how to use our communicators to call in the other Avengers and when Mole Man and his people returned, he became this massive Wolfman in order to hold them off. There were so many of them and he still managed to keep them off of us until the Avengers got there." Steve couldn't keep the admiration out of his voice.

"Unfortunately there was some… confusion then and he ran. It took a week to find him again."

"Incredible," Ellen said. "What were you feeling at the time?"

"I was in shock," Steve admitted. "I'd had no idea he was anything other than a rather special dog. "

Bucky ducked his head so his face was mostly hidden by his long hair. "I thought you'd hate me if you found out."

Steve tightened his grip. "Never. No matter what. You got that?"

The audience roared with approval and Bucky surged forward, trying to lick Steve's face with a tongue that turned out to be too short. Steve smiled.

Ellen let the audience cheer, beaming along with them until she finally waved for silence. It took a while.

"Bucky," she said at last, "earlier you told us you were a, I guess a prisoner of war, and your captors turned you into the wolf creature you became when you defended the Avengers."

Bucky leaned less against Steve and more against the back of the couch, his blanket dipping dangerously low before Steve tugged it back up again. "Yeah," he admitted, "the werewolf. But back then I lost myself in it and all I was was anger and hate. I was their monster." He looked down at his lap and then up at her again. "It took me too long to remember myself and push through to the other side, to become the dog. I've been the dog ever since."

"You really mean wolf, don't you?" she asked.

"No, I'm a dog," he said firmly. "Wolves are wild. They love each other and no one else. I'm a dog. I love people. I won't ever hurt a person again. "

It was probably the best, truest answer he could have given. The audience cheered and Steve hugged Bucky close with unabashed tears on his cheeks. Bucky promptly licked them away, which seemed to result in a lot more hooting from the audience.

Ellen waved for quiet again. "That is beautiful, and obviously everyone agrees. But, Bucky... who did this to you?"

"Nazis."

Her jaw dropped open. "What? But there hasn't been a war against nazis since World War 2!"

Bucky shrugged. "I was drafted in 1943."

In the face of Ellen's shocked expression, Steve gave another one of his perfect war bond smiles. "Like me, he doesn't age. We're totally different except for that and how no one can explain him anymore than they can really explain me. It's just nice to have a contemporary around again. I gotta admit, I'd been pretty lonely since I woke up from the ice.”

As he'd hoped, Ellen latched onto that confession for the next part of the interview. One fact they weren't planning to share with anyone was that Bucky was as much a supersoldier as Steve Rogers. No one wanted to see what cockroaches would crawl out of the woodwork at that pronouncement.

"AII right," Ellen said presently. "Everyone is dying to know what your day to day lives are like. Bucky? What is the worst part about living with Captain America?"

"The worst?" Steve repeated, his eyebrows hiked up to his hairline. "Seriously?"

Bucky's grin was wide and conspiratorial. "Ever since he found out I was a werewolf, he won't clean up after me when I poop on the lawn."

"Of course not! You have two perfectly good hands of your own!"

"So? It's poop. I don't wanna touch it."

"And I do?"

"And what is the best part of it? "Ellen asked, still laughing at both of them.

"Getting to be Stevie's emotional support dog."

Steve gaped at him. "What?"

Bucky shrugged. "Yeah. Snuggling you when you're sad and giving you kisses whenever you need them. It's a big responsibility."

Steve's eyes felt suspiciously wet. "You never told me you thought that way,"

Bucky gave him a 'duh' look. "I thought it was obvious. Guess I forgot how stupid you can be."

Ellen handed Steve a tissue that matched the one she was herself using. "That's beautiful, and I'm so sorry that we're out of time. Thank you both for coming."

"You're welcome, Melon," Bucky said while Steve was honking his nose.

He hesitated and looked at him. "You think she's named Melon?"

Bucky blinked. "Felon?" he tried. "Zelon? Quelon?"

"Ellen!"

Ellen laughed and went over to give Bucky a hug. "You can call me Melon anytime you want."

Bucky grinned and licked her nose in thanks.


End file.
